We finally found our property!
Heading north for 80 acres in Lutsen, MN
After six long years of property searching — and four full years after selling our St. Paul house to lean into this dream — we finally found the place to build our business and home!
We officially signed a purchase agreement and popped the champagne last week, and we can’t wait to tell you all about it, what we hope to do there, and a little bit of what it took to get here.
The Search
It’s safe to say we never imagined that our property search would be this long or arduous of a process. Initially, we began looking for ~10 acres within 90 minutes of the Twin Cities; somewhere with a northwoods feel and ideally a water feature, special view, or location-based attraction. We were open to raw land or properties with existing structures, as long as there was a viable path to commercial zoning (more on our reasons for this below).
Over the years since, we’ve scoured hundreds of properties online, visited 25+ in person, made at least six offers, and lost out for various reasons, over and over again.
Beyond the time and energy of a prolonged property hunt, this process has involved a grueling cycle of dreaming, mentally and emotionally investing in a place enough to want to make it our home, losing out, starting again, and continuing to live in limbo, as we stepped away from jobs and shuffled our things through storage and temporary living situations.
This exhausting routine has brought a type of stress and ambiguous loss that we didn’t anticipate, quietly simmering below the surface of everything we do. And it feels dismissive of this reality, and of the many trade-offs we have made, to simply say that it has all been worth it, now that we have our dream property. But it certainly has been an adventure, and we remain committed to doing what we can to build the life that we want.
In practice, that has meant getting our hands (and feet and everything else) dirty. Taylor and I have scouted properties by bush-whacking, creek-hopping, and on snow-shoe (to access areas without trails or road access). The video below gives you some idea of what it looks like to bush-whack through an undeveloped property, with muck boots on for unknown terrain, DEET for thick mosquitos, and long sleeves and pants to hold up to the scratches of branches, grasses, and thorns.
We have taken the drone up to aerially explore and fought off too many mosquitos and ticks to count, in order to find a place where we can envision our future.
Beyond the wild range of properties that we’ve seen, the real estate game has kept us guessing, too. Among the properties that we’ve loved and lost, a few still have us shaking our heads:
We were over the moon to find a seven acre parcel of Lake Superior shoreline in Silver Bay until we visited, sunk inches into wet dirt, pulled some county records, and discovered that less than one acre was actually buildable and the rest was near-shore wetland…a detail conveniently left out of the listing.
One of the people we cold-called about their property was very receptive, said he’d consider selling, took us on a multi-hour walking tour of the property, told us he wanted to support our dream for the land, negotiated around price…and then texted us that he’d decided to sell it to a friend instead. We dodged a bullet here as the property was recently destroyed by the Stewart Trail Fire in Two Harbors.
At the last minute of another negotiation, we were out-bid on a dream property by one of our best friend’s sister and brother-in-law. Nobody put the pieces together until afterwards, when we saw the new owner details updated on the county GIS.
We spent 9+ months working with a seller and the county on zoning issues and a purchase plan for a Wisconsin fly-fishing lodge and dilapidated resort (on the national register of historic places)…only to learn that the seller had over a MILLION DOLLARS in undisclosed liens and unpaid taxes, had knowingly lied in their disclosures, and misled us on the land’s county permitting.
We’re so tired, y’all. It has been a journey. And we are eternally grateful for the resilience and patience of our long-suffering real estate agent Annette, Taylor’s aunt (Annette Larson at The Bridge Realty). Thank you, Annette, for all the ways you have gone to bat for us and kept us afloat on this long, wild ride.
The Property
A bit earlier this spring, Taylor spotted an incredibly rare North Shore listing for an 80 acre parcel of undeveloped land in Lutsen, MN and we were immediately in awe at the price and opportunity. The catch? It had been on and off the market multiple times because it lacked an easement—or a legal access point to actually get to the property—with no abutting driveways or roads.
We wanted to visit the property, but the only way to actually get to the land itself was hiking in. And in mid-March in northern Minnesota, that actually meant snow-shoeing in. Which is exactly what we did!
After we visited the property, we were cautiously optimistic about the land, given that we were only able to view it in winter and were only able to access about a quarter of the 80 acres on foot. We also felt unfazed by the easement/access challenge, since at this point we feel like true zoning experts and are officially on a first-name basis with the zoning staff in a handful of MN and WI counties. So we wrote up an offer with a contingency for securing the easement.
As of late last week, the easement has been recorded and it’s officially ours!
Property Fast Facts
Raw, undeveloped land with no structures, utilities, or road access yet.
Located under 4 hours from the Twin Cities; roughly 1 hour 45 minutes north of Duluth and 20 minutes south of Grand Marais.
Situated adjacent to the North Shore Winery, Superior National Golf Course, and Lutsen Mountain ski hill, mountain biking, and cross-country ski trails.
Nestled between the Superior Hiking Trail and the paved Gitchi-Gami State Trail, which runs along the shore of Lake Superior.
Connected to a snow mobile trail and adjacent to an outdoor gear rental shop.
Covered in aspen, birch, pine, ferns, a few seasonal creeks, and lots of birds and wildflowers. Plus about 10,000 mosquitos, but we have ideas to address that.
The Plan
Along with building our own home on the property, our plan is to build and operate a small boutique resort with modern Scandinavian tiny cabins, a sauna village, and a large community space where we can host groups, events, and retreats. This part of the dream is why we needed a future property to have a pathway to commercial zoning. We really lucked out with this property, as it is already zoned for commercial/resort status, which will save us months-to-years of zoning timeline and thousands of dollars.
With the proper zoning already in place, our first phase of the process will involve putting in basic infrastructure like a road, water, septic, and power (none of which currently run to the property). In order to pay for the enormous up-front infrastructure costs, we will likely subdivide some parts of the property and sell off a number of acres.
Do you want to be our North Shore neighbor, own valuable Lutsen property, or invest in a climate refuge region? Let us know!
The land itself is breathtaking, and the perfect mix of close to lots of outdoor adventure amenities and wild enough to feel totally immersed in nature. If you turn up the sound on the video below, you can hear the birdsong from our last visit to the property a few weeks ago. If we do some selective clearing, we should have peek-a-boo views of Lake Superior, too.
Once the infrastructure is in, we’ll put in a few tiny cabins and we plan to live full-time on the property as we build the brand, start short-term rentals, and serve as on-site property managers. We’ve already picked out the pre-fab tiny cabins that we will use (keep an eye out for a future blog post with photos and details) and we were even able to go on a factory tour of the tiny home company this past fall to peek behind the scenes and pick out our specific models.
Unfortunately, we know that none of the next steps will be able to happen as quickly as we’d like them to. With permitting timelines, the severe construction-related labor shortage on the North Shore, and a very limited building season, we realistically won’t be able to actually move to the property for another 6-12 months. But we’ve got our eye on a tiny home (entirely off-grid, mounted on a trailer, and truly tiny at 175 square feet) that could serve as a sort of working outpost, allowing us to stay on the property for a few nights at a time (once we get the road in) as we clear the land and plan for what comes next.
In the meantime, we will likely continue to use my family’s cabin in Spooner, WI as our home base, but we are so relieved and excited to finally be at this stage of progress. It is all starting to feel real, and we can’t wait to continue to share updates as we inch towards our goal of being fully self-employed resort owners and official Lutsenites!
Congratulations Laura and Taylor!! The North Shore area is so beautiful and peaceful!! I’m so happy for the both of you following your dreams!! ❤️
Congratulations!! Sometimes you have to wait for the right thing to come along.
All in Gods time!